UX Design is Not a One Man Show
In the last few months, I saw heaps of job vacancies with “UX” on their titles, both in Indonesia and abroad. Surely I am glad to see more and more companies are interested in UX and aware about potentials of UX to their businesses. However, I was astonished to find out how companies regard UX as the work of one person, not a team.
A vacancy would say “UX Web Designer”, where the potential candidate is expected to know the details of a web design process, such as “solid skills in Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, HTML, CSS and cross-browser compatibility” and “understanding of composition, colours, imagery, and typography”. The candidate is expected to have an experience in web deployment but will be required to do UX analysis, without further description what UX analysis is.
This vacancy shows that many companies or recruiters lack the knowledge about what UX is. It is only believed to be a nice-to-have, thus it comes in a package together with a web designer, like a bonus. Are you sure you want to give the burden of UX analysis to this web designer alone? Are you sure that you know what UX is?
Probably the most this web designer can do (apart from the actual web designing) is doing a heuristic usability evaluation on the UI (User Interface). If this person gets support from his/her colleagues then this person will invite non-expert users for doing a user test of the UI. If this person gets support from management then he/she will be able to report what findings from the UI analysis that may affect business decisions. But surely this is not about UX, as UX needs collaboration from different stakeholders (the management, the workers, the users).
Change the vacancy of the title into “UX Developer”, and you will find a list of what a web developer should do, such as PHP and JavaScript, and this person is expected to do UX analysis, too. The game is to add “UX” to any job vacancies, and you’ll find web designers or developers who add “UX” to their resumes applying to the vacancies. Does this solve the problem?
Another vacancy would say “UX Lead” or “UX Head”, where the potential candidate is expected to be a superhuman, from doing the actual job of a UX Designer “work closely with development teams, marketing, business operations and visual designers to translate high level business requirements into detailed user experience designs” to the jobs of a Visual Designer “create beautiful visuals, ranging from content layouts to icons and illustrations."
It also mentions an Interaction Designer “develop detailed interaction, visual design and wireframe specifications that incorporate all technical, editorial, and usability specifications for new products, websites, mobile apps and kiosks” and a Copywriter “design effective marketing pages and email newsletters for our web and mobile products”.
It seems that the description of the job may have been copied from somewhere else, from what a UX designer is able to do, or even the list of what a UX team can do! If it is the job of a single UX Lead, then whom are this person leading? Developers? For sure a UX designer may have been a Visual Designer or an Interaction Designer or a Copywriter in the past, but it is just a part of his/her experience. Now that he/she is a leader, he/she should get supports from a team of people that work for UX.
I understand that companies are eager to enhance the UX of their products or services, but they don’t know where to start from. For sure they want to start from one person, because it is a rational decision both financially and strategically. However, by understanding what steps to take to design a good UX, companies can prevent from overwhelming a staff member to perform a one man show.
My suggestion is to start from existing staff. Train your marketing staff to translate what they know about customers into UX requirements. If you work with an agency for your advertising purpose, work with their Copywriter to get insights on what to display on your website. Train your Web Designers to understand customer characteristics from the marketing staff. Hire a web designer who knows Usability, not UX. Make sure the designers don’t fight with the developers.